Vanity Fair
dilapidated lodges on the Queen's Crawley estate. Like a wise man he
had set to work to rebuild the injured popularity of his house and stop
up the gaps and ruins in which his name had been left by his
disreputable and thriftless old predecessor. He was elected for the
borough speedily after his father's demise; a magistrate, a member of
parliament, a county magnate and representative of an ancient family,
he made it his duty to show himself before the Hampshire public,
subscribed handsomely to the county charities, called assiduously upon
all the county folk, and laid himself out in a word to take that
position in Hampshire, and in the Empire afterwards, to which he
thought his prodigious talents justly entitled him. Lady Jane was
instructed to be friendly with the Fuddlestones, and the Wapshots, and
the other famous baronets, their neighbours. Their carriages might
frequently be seen in the Queen's Crawley avenue now; they dined pretty
frequently at the Hall (where the cookery was so good that it was clear
Lady Jane very seldom had a hand in it), and in return Pitt and his
wife most energetically dined out in all sorts of weather and at all
sorts of distances. For though Pitt did not care for joviality, being
a frigid man of poor hearth and appetite, yet he considered that to be
hospitable and condescending was quite incumbent on his station, and
every time that he got a headache from too long an after-dinner
sitting, he felt that he was a martyr to duty. He talked about crops,
corn-laws, politics, with the best country gentlemen. He (who had been
formerly inclined to be a sad free-thinker on these points) entered
into poaching and game preserving with ardour. He didn't hunt; he
wasn't a hunting man; he was a man of books and peaceful habits; but he
thought that the breed of horses must be kept up in the country, and
that the breed of foxes must therefore be looked to, and for his part,
if his friend, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone, liked to draw his country
and meet as of old the F. hounds used to do at Queen's Crawley, he
should be happy to see him there, and the gentlemen of the Fuddlestone
hunt. And to Lady Southdown's dismay too he became more orthodox in
his tendencies every day; gave up preaching in public and attending
meeting-houses; went stoutly to church; called on the Bishop and all
the Clergy at Winchester; and made no objection when the Venerable
Archdeacon Trumper asked for a game of whist. What pangs must have
been those of Lady Southdown, and what an utter castaway she must have
thought her son-in-law for permitting such a godless diversion! And
when, on the return of the family from an oratorio at Winchester, the
Baronet announced to the young ladies that he should next year very
probably take them to the "county balls," they worshipped him for his
kindness. Lady Jane was only too obedient, and perhaps glad herself to
go. The Dowager wrote off the direst descriptions of her daughter's
worldly behaviour to the authoress of the Washerwoman of Finchley
Common at the Cape; and her house in Brighton being about this time
unoccupied, returned to that watering-place, her absence being not very
much deplored by her children. We may suppose, too, that Rebecca, on
paying a second visit to Queen's Crawley, did not feel particularly
grieved at the absence of the lady of the medicine chest; though she
wrote a Christmas letter to her Ladyship, in which she respectfully
recalled herself to Lady Southdown's recollection, spoke with gratitude
of the delight which her Ladyship's conversation had given her on the
former visit, dilated on the kindness with which her Ladyship had
treated her in sickness, and declared that everything at Queen's
Crawley reminded her of her absent friend.
A great part of the altered demeanour and popularity of Sir Pitt
Crawley might have been traced to the counsels of that astute little
lady of Curzon Street. "You remain a Baronet--you consent to be a mere
country gentleman," she said to him, while he had been her guest in
London. "No, Sir Pitt Crawley, I know you better. I know your talents
and your ambition. You fancy you hide them both, but you can conceal
neither from me. I showed Lord Steyne your pamphlet on malt. He was
familiar with it, and said it was in the opinion of the whole Cabinet
the most masterly thing that had appeared on the subject. The Ministry
has its eye upon you, and I know what you want. You want to
distinguish yourself in Parliament; every one says you are the finest
speaker in England (for your speeches at Oxford are still remembered).
You want to be Member for the County, where, with your own vote and
your borough at your back, you can command anything. And you want to
be Baron Crawley of Queen's Crawley, and will be before you die. I saw
it all. I could read your heart, Sir Pitt. If I had a husband who
possessed your intellect as he does your name, I sometimes think I
should not be unworthy of him--but--but I am your kinswoman now," she
added with a laugh. "Poor little penniless, I have got a little
interest--and who knows, perhaps the mouse may be able to aid the
lion." Pitt Crawley was amazed and enraptured with her speech. "How
that woman comprehends me!" he said. "I never could get Jane to read
three pages of the malt pamphlet. She has no idea that I have
commanding talents or secret ambition. So they remember my speaking at
Oxford, do they? The rascals! Now that I represent my borough and may
sit for the county, they begin to recollect me! Why, Lord Steyne cut
me at the levee last year; they are beginning to find out that Pitt
Crawley is some one at last. Yes, the man was always the same whom
these people neglected: it was only the opportunity that was wanting,
and I will show them now that I can speak and act as well as write.
Achilles did not declare himself until they gave him the sword. I hold
it now, and the world shall yet hear of Pitt Crawley."
Therefore it was that this roguish diplomatist has grown so hospitable;
that he was so civil to oratorios and hospitals; so kind to Deans and
Chapters; so generous in giving and accepting dinners; so uncommonly
gracious to farmers on market-days; and so much interested about county
business; and that the Christmas at the Hall was the gayest which had
been known there for many a long day.
On Christmas Day a great family gathering took place. All the Crawleys
from the Rectory came to dine. Rebecca was as frank and fond of Mrs.
Bute as if the other had never been her enemy; she was affectionately
interested in the dear girls, and surprised at the progress which they
had made in music since her time, and insisted upon encoring one of the
duets out of the great song-books which Jim, grumbling, had been forced
to bring under his arm from the Rectory. Mrs. Bute, perforce, was
obliged to adopt a decent demeanour towards the little adventuress--of
course being free to discourse with her daughters afterwards about the
absurd respect with which Sir Pitt treated his sister-in-law. But Jim,
who had sat next to her at dinner, declared she was a trump, and one
and all of the Rector's family agreed that the little Rawdon was a fine
boy. They respected a possible baronet in the boy, between whom and the
title there was only the little sickly pale Pitt Binkie.
The children were very good friends. Pitt Binkie was too little a dog
for such a big dog as Rawdon to play with; and Matilda being only a
girl, of course not fit companion for a young gentleman who was near
eight years old, and going into jackets very soon. He took the command
of this small party at once--the little girl and the little boy
following him about with great reverence at such times as he
condescended to sport with them. His happiness and pleasure in the
country were extreme. The kitchen garden pleased him hugely, the
flowers moderately, but the pigeons and the poultry, and the stables
when he was allowed to visit them, were delightful objects to him. He
resisted being kissed by the Misses Crawley, but he allowed Lady Jane
sometimes to embrace him, and it was by her side that he liked to sit
when, the signal to retire to the drawing-room being given, the ladies
left the gentlemen to their claret--by her side rather than by his
mother. For Rebecca, seeing that tenderness was the fashion, called
Rawdon to her one evening and stooped down and kissed him in the
presence of all the ladies.
He looked her full in the face after the operation, trembling and
turning very red, as his wont was when moved. "You never kiss me at
home, Mamma," he said, at which there was a general silence and
consternation and a by no means pleasant look in Becky's eyes.
Rawdon was fond of his sister-in-law, for her regard for his son. Lady
Jane and Becky did not get on quite so well at this visit as on
occasion of the former one, when the Colonel's wife was bent upon
pleasing. Those two speeches of the child struck rather a chill.
Perhaps Sir Pitt was rather too attentive to her.
But Rawdon, as became his age and size, was fonder of the society of
the men than of the women, and never wearied of accompanying his sire
to the stables, whither the Colonel retired to smoke his cigar--Jim,
the Rector's son, sometimes joining his cousin in that and other
amusements. He and the Baronet's keeper were very close friends, their
mutual taste for "dawgs" bringing them much together. On one day, Mr.
James, the Colonel, and Horn, the keeper, went and shot pheasants,
taking little Rawdon with them. On another most blissful morning,
these four gentlemen partook of the amusement of rat-hunting in a barn,
than which sport Rawdon as yet had never seen anything more noble.
They stopped up the ends of certain drains in the barn, into the other
openings of which ferrets were inserted, and then stood silently aloof,
with uplifted stakes in their hands, and an anxious little terrier (Mr.
James's celebrated "dawg" Forceps, indeed) scarcely breathing from
excitement, listening motionless on three legs, to the faint squeaking
of the rats below. Desperately bold at last, the persecuted animals
bolted above-ground--the terrier accounted for one, the keeper for
another; Rawdon, from flurry and excitement, missed his rat, but on the
other hand he half-murdered a ferret.
But the greatest day of all was that on which Sir Huddlestone
Fuddlestone's hounds met upon the lawn at Queen's Crawley.
That was a famous sight for little Rawdon. At half-past ten, Tom
Moody, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's huntsman, was seen trotting up the
avenue, followed by the noble pack of hounds in a compact body--the
rear being brought up by the two whips clad in stained scarlet
frocks--light hard-featured lads on well-bred lean horses, possessing
marvellous dexterity in casting the points of their long heavy whips at
the thinnest part of any dog's skin who dares to straggle from the main
body, or to take the slightest notice, or even so much as wink, at the
hares and rabbits starting under their noses.
Next comes boy Jack, Tom Moody's son, who weighs five stone, measures
eight-and-forty inches, and will never be any bigger. He is perched on
a large raw-boned hunter, half-covered by a capacious saddle. This
animal is Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's favourite horse the Nob. Other
horses, ridden by other small boys, arrive from time to time, awaiting
their masters, who will come cantering on anon.
Tom Moody rides up to the door of the Hall, where he is welcomed by the
butler, who offers him drink, which he declines. He and his pack then
draw off into a sheltered corner of the lawn, where the dogs roll on
the grass, and play or growl angrily at one another, ever and anon
breaking out into furious fight speedily to be quelled by Tom's voice,